Is there a simple library for C++ to draw to the screen?

Question

Hello,

I'm just starting out in C++ programming and I want to try creating a space invaders clone in C++, I want to avoid using game libraries and things that would solve a lot of the problems (like game loop and vector maths etc) so I can tackle these myself, but, I have no idea how to begin drawing things to a screen.

I was wondering if there's a good library I should use to simply allow myself to draw lines or graphics to the screen or whether I can do this without the use of a library?

I'd appreciate any advice,

Thanks.

Answer 1

Check out SDL.

Answer 2

PixelToaster (was OpenPTC/TinyPTC) is one of my favorites. It's fairly minimalistic and very easy to get started with.

Answer 3

I guess SDL is the simple library you're looking for. If you want you can work pretty much with the screen as a framebuffer where you modify pixel by pixel if you really want. It's a C library, but it's quite object oriented, so it's nice to work with in C++ as well.

Answer 4

I recommend either Allegro or SDL, even though they are mostly 2D:

Allegro:
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/

SDL:
http://www.libsdl.org/

Answer 5

I would check SDL or Allegro

Answer 6

Wouldn't it be more interesting to do it by printing 80x?? ascii characters on the screen every .x seconds?

Answer 7

In my opinion, starting right away with a GUI library like wxWidgets (www.wxwidgets.org) is a good idea because they are often platform-independent and provide good drawing mechanisms -- plus all that other GUI stuff you might find useful later on.

Answer 8

There are a lot of simple libraries. SDL and Allegro have gotten a lot of mentions already, but there are several others as well:

• OpenGL
• DirectX (yes, yes, I know, not "simple," but certainly gets the job done)
• Cairo (for vector drawing)
• SFML (an SDL-alike that has some drawing primitives)
• GGI
• Qt (which does a lot more than widgets and is highly modular)
• DirectFB (which works without a host GUI like X.org)

And many others I'll be kicking myself for forgetting.